There has been a lot of discussion about the Australian healthcare system lately. The Australian healthcare (Medicare) system is quite different from the healthcare system in the United States. Public hospitals are owned and operated by the State and Territory Governments. Public hospitals are rare in the United States. In addition to the public healthcare (Medicare) in Australia, there is also private health insurance. "Nearly half of the Australian population (47%) had private hospital coverage and nearly 56 percent had general treatment coverage in 2015." It would appear the Australian Medicare system is dependent on public facilities.

"President Trump is right. The Australian healthcare system provides healthcare to all of its people at a fraction of the cost than we do," Sanders commented on Twitter." A fraction of the cost of U.S. healthcare? I'm not sure the numbers support that statement. According to a 2015 report from The Commonwealth Fund, The U.S. spend 17.1% of GDP on health care compared to 9.4% in Australia. The average annual growth of health care spending per capita in the U.S. is 1.24%, in Australia it is 2.42%. Out of pocket health care spending per capita in the U.S. is $1,074, in Australia it is $771. Maybe they are catching up with us.


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Most of this information was obtained from The Commonwealth Fund, "Health Care System and Health Policy in Australia."

Austrialia has Medicare, which "covers universal access to free treatment in public hospitals and subsidies for medical services;"
Public hospitals are owned and operated by the State and Territory Governments.
The public patient (patient covered by Medicare) has a treating doctor assigned by the hospital. You don't get a choice of doctor. Private patients have choice of doctor,
Both city and country people have good access to nurses but doctors, and especially specialists, are concentrated in the cities.

Disparities between major urban centers and rural and remote regions and across socioeconomic groups are also major challenges.

There is a dramatic gap in the health indicators for the indigenous population compared to non-indigenous Australians.

Private health insurance - Since 1996, there have been incentives to encourage the purchase of insurance, often described as ‘carrots and sticks’.
The carrots comprise a 30% rebate on private insurance premiums.
The sticks are an income tax surcharge for higher income earners without private cover.
Since 2000, there has been a financial incentive to purchase insurance by the age of 30 and to stay with cover.
Nearly half of the Australian population (47%) had private hospital coverage and nearly 56 percent had general treatment coverage in 2015.

From a 2013 OECD report: The United States is one of the few OECD countries that has not achieved yet universal health coverage for a core set of services. In 2011, it had the highest proportion of its population without health coverage among all OECD countries, with 15% of the U.S. population uninsured. The Affordable Care Act is expected to expand health insurance coverage, which will become mandatory for nearly all citizens and legal residents from January 2014.

The United States does have a way to go to provide universal health coverage. Based on the review of this one country that does provide universal coverage, a lot of analysis is needed. With our current costs much higher than other countries something needs to be done to reduce costs to enable universal health coverage. For example, according to this report from The Commonwealth Fund, in 2013 there were 35.5 magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines per million population in the U.S. In Australia, there are on 13.4. In addition, there were 106.9 MRI exams per 1,000 population in the U.S. and 27.6 in Australia. Are these good or bad things? Who wants to be the one to not get an MRI when it is possibly needed?